Procurement departments all over the world are utilizing
procurement software and tools to automate the process of purchasing materials,
finding new suppliers, running sourcing events and maintaining an inventory of
goods, whether in distribution centers, in the pipeline or on the shelf. The
advancement of technology is allowing procurement to enhance market
coordination, foster increased compliance, introduce and vet new suppliers, and
decrease human error within the sourcing initiative. These enhancements are not
only beneficial to the procurement operation but beneficial to the
buyer-supplier relationship through collaboration and communication.

Speaking of relationships, if you really think about it,
technology has also allowed singles all over the world to perform their own
e-procurement or sourcing event from their mobile phone, every day. Yes, I said
it, online dating is a personal dating-procurement platform from your couch, on
the bus etc.… With the influx of dating applications and websites, technology
has indeed changed the dating game, forever. Let’s take the app, Bumble, for
instance. Bumble allows you search (or vet in procurement speak) for single
people in your area looking to meet for dating, friendship or any other
activity you could care to mention. You can then do you research by googling,
Facebooking, and “creeping” their Instagram feed to ensure this is a person
you’d like to start and maintain a conversation with (moving into the RFP
process). When this the small-talk is over, you already know their educational
background, where they grew up, their job etc.… it’s rather intrusive, but we
all do it. Each stage of the online dating experience and process replicates
the basic sourcing initiative engagement:

Step 1 - Baseline:The baseline would include past relationship(s), current
relationship(s), dating experiences and other’s dating experiences. This
corresponds with establishing your current state with your incumbent supplier
and even past supplier relationships that you have encountered.

Step 2- Request for Information (RFI):This is the process of reading profiles and
selecting which suitors you’ll chose to engage in conversation and eventually
“invite” to the Request for proposal stage of the initiative.This mirrors calling and vetting alternate
suppliers to potentially include in the RFP process.

Step 3 – Request for Proposal (RFP): In this stage, just as you would in a
procurement event, you are asking questions to understand if the suitor
(supplier) will meet your requirements and if they would be a good fit.

Step 4 - On-Site Visit/Testing: Simply put, this is meeting
your suitor(s) to really understand if the relationship would be a good fit. In
procurement, it could be on-site visits, photography test shoots, test runs and
so much more.

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Liz Skipor

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Let’s start at the beginning – people lie, about their age, about their appearance, about their whole lives. They eventually get caught, but it pays to be wary. You don’t want to waste your time, be swindled, or worse. On the plus side, most people in the online dating world are… well, people. They’re honest, ordinary human beings with hopes, fears and dreams of their own. They’re looking for a connection, for someone to share their lives with or just someone to talk to. Naturally, there are those with really bizarre ideas of appropriate conduct. Seriously, describing your hunting escapades in grizzly detail is not a good conversation starter. I’m not opposed to hunting, but there’s time and place for everything. I mean… come on, dude. On the other extreme, another man i met at cleveland.partyline.com wrote me a poem when he finally got the nerve to ask me out. It was a sweet gesture; even though the date didn’t pan out, we remained friends.

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